5 New Travel Startups Put a Twist on the Peer-to-Peer Marketplace Model

Samantha Shankman, Skift

- Dec 29, 2014 6:00 am

Skift Take

It’s rare to come across a novel idea in the travel startup ecosystem today; however, that doesn’t mean that iterations of an already proven model can’t succeed.

— Samantha Shankman

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Blania is a platform that connects travelers with Spanish teachers in Mexico. All classes take place in spots that tourists would already want to visit including museums, galleries or restaurants. Blania

Tripsuit recommends trips based on users’ interests and previous trips in an effort to cut the hours spend on researching destinations and hotels.TripSuit

Bundle organizes users’ raw photo streams by choosing which it thinks are the best photos, packing them into albums and then socializing them across users’ networks. Bundle

Campr is a social platform where travelers can find, book and pay for unique camping spots. Hosts list their properties and manage bookings. Campr

Oniva is a social travel app that collects users’ favorite places and experiences, making them available to users who search for recommendations in the same place. Oniva

This week’s travel startups apply the now common peer-to-peer marketplace model to two new categories: camping and in-person language lessons. There’s also an app that wants to help you organize your far too many travel photos, a site that wants to cut your research time from nine hours to thirty minutes, and a startup trying to make discovery easy.

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>> Blania is a platform that connects travelers with Spanish teachers in Mexico. All classes take place in spots that tourists would already want to visit including museums, galleries or restaurants.

SkiftTake: Marketplaces have become a popular model for travel startups; however, this is one of the first we’ve seen to take language learning offline and into an interactive experience.

>> TripSuit recommends trips based on users’ interests and previous trips in an effort to cut the hours spent on researching destinations and hotels.

SkiftTake: However ambitious the goal, travelers have shown time and again that personal searches are a large part of the travel cycle. Bookers will always take advantage of the web to try and find a better deal over trusting a one-stop shop.

>> Campr is a social platform where travelers can find, book and pay for unique camping spots. Hosts list their properties and manage bookings.

SkiftTake: Campr is one iteration of the growing peer-to-peer lodging market in which niche sites work to build a user base outside of the mainstream Airbnb user.

>> Bundle organizes users’ raw photo streams by choosing which it thinks are the best photos, packing them into albums and then socializing them across users’ networks.

SkiftTake: Anyone with a smartphone today takes way too many photos during their travels so any tool that attempts to organize the mess has a shot at attracting users.

>> Oniva is a social travel app that collects users’ favorite places and experiences, making them available to users who search for recommendations in the same place. Users can also search for just their friends’ recommendations or share specific travel lists.

SkiftTake: This platform is like Yelp among friends; however, many sites like this have come and gone without gaining a critical mass.

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